OctaFX.com-OctaFX ECN trading!
What is ECN/STP trading?
It is a broker's business model (which, generally, makes the difference between brokers and "market makers"), in which clients' orders are sent directly to one or several liquidity providers to be executed on their end. There may be an unlimited number of liquidity providers (that is, banks, aggregators, other financial institutions). The more liquidity providers a broker has, the better the execution for its clients (more liquidity available, less slippage). What makes a true STP broker is that it doesn't internalize the orders, but sends them to liquidity providers, acting as an intermediary between the client and the real market.
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Do you have requotes?
No, we don't. Any broker who re-quotes your orders is definitely a dealing desk broker. A requote occurs whenever the dealer on the other side of the trade (whether human or automatic) sets an execution delay during which the price changes. Therefore he can't open your order and sends you a message that the price has changed. That is, a requote. You usually get a new price which can be significantly different from the one you requested (especially when the market is volatile). In most cases it's not profitable for the trader but quite profitable for the broker. OctaFX doesn't have any requotes simply because we don't have a dealing desk, human or automatic (a piece of software usually referred to as a virtual dealer, automatic dealer and so on).
What is slippage and why does it happen?
Slippage is a slight order opening price movement which is a result of lack of liquidity (when it's already taken by other traders' orders). It may also happen during market gaps.
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It is important to understand that we do not guarantee that your order will be filled exactly at the requested price; our system is setup to fill it with the next best price from another liquidity provider.
So during these news times it's possible that there will be no liquidity available at the price you requested. Let's say you want to open a 5 lot Buy order, EUR/USD, price is 1.30000. Now, in this case we can see the following liquidity available:
Provider 1: price is 1.30010, 20 lots available
Provider 2: price is 1.30005, 5 lots available
Provider 3: price is 1.30000, 1 lot available
In this case your order will be offset with Provider 2, since he has the best price and enough liquidity to fill your order. And the open price will be 1.30050, which is 0.5. pips away from the price you requested. But, again, your order will not be requoted, since we are more interested in your profitable trading.
Why don't you guarantee stop orders?
Again, in the real market there is no such thing as a "guaranteed stop"; it is offered by dealing desks only. As stated above, market makers do not offset your orders anywhere, rather they keep them inside. So when your "guaranteed" stop loss is triggered, it means that your whole loss amount is already in the dealer's pocket.
This causes so-called "stop-loss hunting" practice. The dealing desk can see where your stop orders are, so it's easy for them to manipulate the price, so that it hits your stop-loss.
In real market any stop order is considered as pending until its price is hit. After that the order is offset to a liquidity provider (which, again, may or may not involve slippage depending on the available liquidity). Therefore it's simply impossible to either "guarantee" or "hunt" your stop orders.